NELLA GALLERIA DELLA CITTA

 

 

            The local gallery, it seems, could buy

            the lesser works of masters, better efforts

            by the minor painters.  Not the sought-for

gleam of treasure in the deep rich night,

this merely smudgy Rembrandt.  Here’s the right

Chirico, though, “The Anguish of Departure,”

solid blocks of sun and shadow harshly pictured,

having more to do with thought than sight.

 

Approaching in the glare some terminus

beyond which nothing is the same and hope

is gone, how bright is grief, with searching rays

of hot dispair contrasting shades in us

of here and gone, of now and past, before

it all became too late and far away.